These are notes sent to participants on the six week Intensive regarding the choice of question (with the exception of item 8 which was not included in the circular sent to participants). They are based on an extended interview with Charles Berner in 1997.
- Since the aim of a long Intensive is to have a deep experience of the Truth the question “Who am I?” will not be included in the questions available. The experience of “who” is generally a fairly shallow experience; deep experiences of self are always “what” experiences. Thus there will only be three questions available for the six-week; “What am I?”, “What is life?” and “What is another?”
- The choice of question is an issue because the question itself determines the part of your mind engaged in the process and also the nature of the progress that you can make. These notes aim to provide you with information on these aspects of each of the questions.
- Participants will only be allowed to change their question if they have a deep experience of the Truth of that question which they succeed in presenting to me. If I am in any doubt I will keep the participant on the same question. Changing question opens up a new area of the person’s mind which reduces the probability of having further experiences. I worked on “What am I?” for the full six week period and had five experiences, of which number three was the deepest – but the last two were certainly not insignificant. All my experience with long Intensives suggests that it is generally best to stick with the same question. This adds weight to the significance of the initial choice.
- What am I? Because I worked on this for six weeks I regard it as an excellent question. One advantage of the question is that the object of contemplation is always present and pretty obvious. I have noticed that some people appear to get stuck on this question and spend long periods with nothing coming up or with similar images arising. This appears to be a result of the individual’s unwillingness to go deeper in their contemplation – which is usually an unwillingness to be open to something embarrassing or which blows their carefully constructed image. You really have to be willing to face anything about yourself to progress with this question for six weeks – but if you are then you can make enormous progress.
- What is life? In the past Charles Berner has stated that it is a lack of clarity about life that holds most people up in their actual life. What is life actually? What is the purpose of life? These are issues that are rarely pondered outside an Intensive and yet are clearly crucial for determining how to live ones life. The problem with working on life is that the object of contemplation becomes an issue. The issue is unavoidable and has driven people nuts on long Intensives.
- What is another? This is widely regarded as the “big issue”, the ultimate question to work on. Many people choose to work on this on a long Intensive because it is hard to make sufficient progress on a three day to reach the point where a direct experience is possible. Briefly this is the area of the mind where there is most “stuff” to deal with – and it is only when it has been quietened sufficiently that an experience is possible. I strongly advise people against working on this question until they have had a powerful experience of themselves (see also note 7 on this issue). Apart from dealing with a large area of one’s mind the main difficulty with this question is finding ways to communicate what is arising without involving the person contemplated (which should normally be your partner or someone else in the room). This is a non-trivial issue and, like the difficulty with the object on the life question, cannot be avoided and has to be mastered before the possibility of an experience is reached.
- Potential results. I have discussed some of the issues associated with the choice of question with Charles Berner recently. He has increased my understanding of the potential results that can be obtained from each of the questions, and this seems to me significant in determining your choice. One strong statement that Charles Berner made is that an individual cannot have a deeper experience of another than he or she has already had of themselves. I have checked this against my own experience and observations of others and seems to me to be correct. I think the same holds true for life, but it is harder to compare depth of experience on life with other questions. Once consequence of this is that if you want a deeper experience than you have previously had then you should work on “What am I?”. Charles Berner is even stronger on this, he says that if you are serious about becoming enlightened this is the only question you should work on
- Technical Issues. According to Berner the ultimate experience on the life question is that life does not exist, so his current advice is for people to not pursue this question if they want liberation. Although this may be technically true I do not recommend people taking someone else’s opinion on such matters. For me “life” is real until I experience otherwise. Berner has also said, very strongly, that it is actually impossible to experience another being directly. According to him one is simply experiencing something about oneself that is also in the other – this is the technical basis of stating that one cannot experience another any deeper than one has already experienced oneself.
Conclusion. So does this mean that “what am I?” is the only question worth working on? Not at all. As far as I am aware all the participants on the six week are householders, working and living in the world. This means that they also want to improve their ability to have fruitful and successful lives and fulfilling relationships – and direct experiences of life and another will certainly achieve these goals. Indeed working on “Life and “Another” will lead to substantial improvements in your ability to run your life and relationships better regardless of whether you have an experience on these questions. So one of the criteria to use in your choice of question is what sort of outcome do you want from the Intensive. Do you want to know how to lead your life better? Do you want to understand others better and improve your relationships? Or do you want to know yourself better? It is a matter of emphasis. I had a profound experience of what I am that also had the effect of transforming how I led my life and how I related to others – and very deep experiences can be expected to have this quality of changing things across the board. I suppose the one strong conclusion that does come out of this is that if you evaluate your previous experiences as not being very deep then you will improve your chances of having deeper experiences by working on “What am I?”
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A Master's Path 